Main » Trump Signs Executive Order to Stop Family Separations at Border

Trump Signs Executive Order to Stop Family Separations at Border

21 June 2018

President Trump Wednesday afternoon signed an executive order ending family separation at the U.S. -Mexico border. Obama's top domestic policy adviser, Cecilia Muñoz, told the New York Times in a recent interview that the former administration had considered a family-separation policy but ultimately opted against it.

Under the administration's "zero-tolerance" policy introduced earlier this year, immigrant families who cross the border illegally are separated, with parents facing federal prosecution on illegal entry charges and children placed into the care of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Note: This article has been updated to include the contents of the executive order.

Trump backed down as House Republicans hit a stalemate on the broader immigrationlegislation and the Senate was still in negotiations on a narrowly focused bill to keep families together.

"To stop family separations once and for all, the administration must end the zero-tolerance policy", Olivares said.

Although Trump's crackdown is aimed at deterring irregular migration to the USA, the North American country has witnessed has witnessed a surge since October, with many migrants fleeing violence and extreme poverty in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

The executive order directs the attorney general to promptly file a request with U.S. District Judge Dolly Gree in the Central District of California to modify the Flores Settlement and allow detained migrant families to be held together "throughout the pendency of criminal proceedings. or other immigration proceedings".

Speaker Paul Ryantold reporters that the House would vote on Thursday (local time) on new Republican immigration bills.

So Trump's order is likely to create a fresh set of problems and may well spark a new court fight.

"We do not want children taken away from their parents", Ryan, R-Wis., said.

But the Trump administration says that approach amounted to "catch and release" because numerous migrants never showed up to court.

He also noted that as a nation 'we have to do more than say 'this isn't who we are.' We have to prove it - through our policies, our laws, our actions, and our votes'. She was heckled at a restaurant Tuesday evening and has faced protesters at her home. Trump's daughter, Ivanka, also spoke with the president several times to express her concerns, said another person familiar with the matter. If those options are exhausted, authorities must find the "least restrictive" setting for the child who arrived without parents. Because any illegal border crossing is prosecuted, parents and children are separated during the legal process.

That's the legacy our parents and grandparents and generations before created for us, and it's something we have to protect for the generations to come.

"What we are seeing at our border right now - children only a few months old being pulled from their mothers' arms, toddlers distraught and wailing for their parents, children being separated from their parents with no idea if they will ever see them again - is fundamentally at odds with everything this nation stands for and believes", Biden said in a statement on Facebook.

Striking down the ruling became a goal of immigration hard-liners, particularly after a 2016 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals limiting the government's ability to keep children in detention for more than 20 days.